One type of urine analysis apparatus has a construction wherein urine analysis is conducted by extracting specimens one at a time from an accommodating unit where a plurality of specimens are accommodated and supplying these specimens continuously to a photometric unit. Usually a plurality of specimens are accommodated in the accommodating unit but there is no uniformity of arrangement as regards their front and rear faces. The analysis apparatus is therefore constructed to identify front and rear of specimens extracted from the accommodating unit and to supply the specimens to the photometric unit after putting the specimens in a uniform arrangement as regards front and rear on the basis of the results of this discrimination process (see for example Patent Document 1 and Patent Document 2).
As a method of putting the front and rear of the specimens in a uniform arrangement, in some cases a rotary body is utilised formed with through-holes for accommodating specimens (see for example Patent Document 3). In this method, the front and rear directions of the specimens are put in a uniform arrangement by controlling the direction of rotation of the rotary body in accordance with the results of identification of front or rear of the specimens by a sensor, after feeding the specimens extracted from the accommodating unit into the rotary body formed with through-holes.
However, in the method described above, due to the need to provide a rotary body of special shape and a mechanism for rotating this rotary body, the construction of the analysis apparatus becomes complicated, making the apparatus more bulky and tending to increase manufacturing costs. Furthermore, a drive source such as a dedicated motor is required for driving the rotary body, making the problems described above even more severe. Not only this, but running costs are also increased by the need to drive the dedicated motor.                Patent Document 1: JP-A-H07-306206        Patent Document 2: JP-B-H06-99018        Patent Document 3: JP-A-2000-35433        